BYRON TOWNSHIP, MI -- If you bought a poinsettia at Meijer this season, the colorful holiday plant came from Masterpiece Flower Company in Byron Township.

Masterpiece is the exclusive poinsettia supplier for the Midwest retailer, which operates 199 stores in five states, including 101 in Michigan.

Meijer is highlighting these locally grown plants with store signs that dovetail with a statewide "Make It Real Michigan” campaign that is encouraging shoppers to buy Michigan-grown poinsettias and Christmas trees this holiday season.

Masterpiece expects to sell 700,000 of the potted plants this holiday season, making it one of the largest of the 54 Michigan growers of this specialty crop. The state ranks seventh in the country for poinsettias production, with nearly 2.2 million pots grown in 2011.

While the industry has struggled in recent years, that hasn’t been the case for Masterpiece. Sales are up double digits in the last three years compared to a 20-percent decline for the industry when wholesale sales shrank to $8.5 million in 2011.

“We are looking at up to a 20 percent increase over last year,” in sales, said Jamie Robertson, Meijer’s buyer of indoor floral.

That uptick in sales can be attributed to consumers' interest in buying local, along with the variety and quality of the Masterpiece Flower’s poinsettias, said Bill Stechebar, Meijer’s divisional merchandising manager over outdoor and indoor garden and floral.

Tips for caring for your Poinsettia

1. Be careful of over watering. Try the “heft” test by picking up the plant. If it’s light, then it needs water. Poinsettias usually need to be watered every other day.

2. Choose a warm location. Poinsettias do better on tables rather than near windows where they can feel a cool draft. These Mexican plants like 65 degrees or higher temperatures.

Source: Paul Bouma

“The first sales were last weekend, and we sold a lot,” said Paul Bouma, Masterpiece’s account manager.

He is also the son-in-law of Henry Mast Jr., whose father, Henry Mast Sr., a Dutch immigrant, started the company, now located at 2125 72nd St. SW, in 1948 as a vegetable grower in the Grand Rapids neighborhood of Alger Heights.

Masterpiece is a 10-year-old company that sells, merchandise and distributes plants grown by Henry Mast Greenhouse, which has been supplying Meijer stores since 1963. The companies have the same ownership, made up of Bouma, founder Henry Mast’s grandson Chris Mast, and four partners who are long-term key employees.

The third-generation, family-owned business has just two clients: Meijer and Home Depot. The retail business is enough to keep the company’s 100 greenhouse employees working year around.

Meijer has been an important part of the company’s success. Masterpiece supplies a range of seasonal potted plants from cut flowers to potted Easter Lilies.

“We’ve had the luxury and privilege of growing as Meijer has grown,” said Bouma. “It’s a relationship that has come from over 50 years of doing business.”

The focus has been on quality plants, which require more separation between plants so they can grow bigger.

Freshness is also another key goal, which is why plants are usually on Meijer shelves within 24 hours of leaving the greenhouses.

“We feel that we have the best products in the store,” Bouma said.

Masterpiece’s work doesn’t end when it ships the plants. A merchandising team follows up with visits to the stores to build displays and make sure the plants are well-groomed.

“The floral team has been fantastic,” said Bouma, noting they have pushed Masterpiece to be innovative, from upgrades in genetics to packaging.

The Meijer floral team returns the praise.

“They are great partners,” said Robertson. “They are always bringing new things to us.”

Those twists on the Christmas classic includes quads which feature four plants, pots with three different colored leaf plants - red, pink and white - and an eight-inch glitz pot wrapped with a organza sheet and topped with a spiral gold ting-ting. These higher-end products sell for $14.99 or less.

“You are not going to see (these kind of products) in every retailer,” Bouma said. “We like to think of this as a low-price luxury.”

With a few more weeks left in the season, the company’s greenhouse is still a sea of red leaves, although there are patches of other colors: pink, white, tri-colors and painted hues of blue, green and lavender.

“This is the most we have grown,” said Bouma, noting that before the first order shipped out, there were more than 32 acres of poinsettias.

The plants take six months to grow, and the process begins in July when cuttings arrive from Guatemala.

LeRoy DeVries, who oversees the greenhouse operation and is a partner, says the plants indigenous to Mexico and Central America aren’t easy to cultivate in the cooler climes of Michigan - even when they are under the protective cover of a greenhouse.

“It’s a rainforest environment; they prefer the desert,” DeVries said.

After the poinsettias are gone, the greenhouse production will transition into spring bulbs - tulips, daffodils and hyacinth - that begin moving out to stores in January. In March, there will Easter Lillies followed by spring potted plants and bedding garden plants. In July, poinsettias and fall mums will be the focus.